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Pioneer Golgari Elves Guide
Back to the Game
Hello everyone
It's been a while since I published my last articles. The competitive magic scene has had its ups and downs, and now, I am back in the game! Today, I would like to discuss a deck, Elves, which I believe has been underrated and underplayed in Pioneer .
Why Elves?
The answer is simple. Elves is the best deck capable of breaking serves in Game One. We have always heard about Pioneer being a play-draw format. The die roll matters so much. Yet, Elves is positioned in a completely different position compared to other decks in the format. It is a mix of combo and aggro deck, not with 8, but with 14 one-cost mana dorks in the deck. It also gains a lot of free game one against the top meta deck in the format.
First of all, let’s start with my latest deck list. I made some slight modification after RC Chiba and here is the list:
$339/37.68 Tix
Maindeck (60)
| Creature [33] | ||
|---|---|---|
| 4 Llanowar Elves | $0.69 | |
| 3 Elvish Visionary | $0.35 | |
| 3 Dwynen's Elite | $0.35 | |
| 4 Shaman of the Pack | $0.69 | |
| 4 Elvish Warmaster | $1.29 | |
| 4 Jaspera Sentinel | $0.35 | |
| 4 Leaf-Crowned Visionary | $5.99 | |
| 4 Elvish Mystic | $0.99 | |
| 2 Gnarlroot Trapper | $0.35 | |
| 1 Reclamation Sage | $0.35 | |
| Instant [8] | ||
|---|---|---|
| 4 Collected Company | $11.99 | |
| 4 Chord of Calling | $6.99 | |
| Land [19] | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 Lair of the Hydra | $1.99 | |
| 1 Forest | $0.01 | |
| 3 Llanowar Wastes | $1.49 | |
| 4 Overgrown Tomb | $15.99 | |
| 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx | $39.99 | |
| 4 Blooming Marsh | $2.49 | |
| 3 Secluded Courtyard | $0.59 | |
| 2 Boseiju, Who Endures | $49.99 | |
| Sideboard [15] | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 Phyrexian Revoker | $0.49 | |
| 3 Shapers' Sanctuary | $0.99 | |
| 1 Selfless Spirit | $2.99 | |
| 2 Fatal Push | $2.49 | |
| 1 Mistcaller | $0.49 | |
| 1 Drannith Magistrate | $22.99 | |
| 2 Vivien, Monsters' Advocate | $5.49 | |
| 1 Soulless Jailer | $0.99 | |
| 2 Dark Betrayal | $0.35 | |
| 1 Masked Vandal | $0.69 | |
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Archetype Analysis
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Card choices
Mana dork
These 12 mana dorks are the core to the deck. Every unchecked turn one mana dork just boosts the win rate by a huge margin. This is also the reason Elves can break serve more often compared to other decks.
On top of the best 12 Elves, we also got two additional Gnarlroot Trapper. It is not the best Elf we could have but the deathtouch ability is surprisingly relevant when it comes to charging with our whole board into small numbers of bigger creatures. The other option is Citanul Stalwart, but the requirement of tapping another creature crashed with Jaspera Sentinel and it is worse in multiple.
The Payoff
The payoffs are quite self explanatory. Elvish Warmaster is the reason we can go wild so well. The pumping activation happens more often then you might expect. Leaf-Crowned Visionary just did it all, pumping up the whole team and drawing cards with our boosted mana. Shaman of the Pack allows us to race any decks. The deck is very good at finding multiple Shaman of the Pack to close games. I am not going to dig down too much, the payoffs are just good and we will never sideboard them out.
With all these good payoffs, we would like a good way to multiply them. Collected Company is a card advantage source and allows us to play around mass removals. Chord of Calling lets us abuse the token generators and put our payoffs directly into play. It is a common pattern to get an end of turn Shaman of the Pack and close the game with a round charge.
The Flex Slots
Dwynen's Elite and Elvish Visionary helped to fill in the slot for some utility creatures. Dwynen's Elite is good when the opponent does not have much interaction on your turn one mana dork. Elvish Visionary does the other way round where we don’t have to jam out playoffs to a naked board exposing to removal without getting any value.
Reclamation Sage is the bullet for Chord of Calling. It answers Parhelion II which is the biggest problem for us in game one. Randomly destroying Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is also good value.
The Mana Base
It is not a fancy mana base. I mana flooded a little bit in the RC that I believe adding a Lair of the Hydra would be good. The other utility lands are 2 Boseiju, Who Endures and a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Boseiju, Who Endures stacks up our disenchant effects. Nykthos can help Elvish Warmaster and Leaf-Crowned Visionary’s activations.
The rest are a bunch of duals and a forest. I played 11 actual black sources for some black sideboard spells so that we got a reasonable chance to cast them in the early game along with 4 Jaspera Sentinel.
Sideboard Choices
The Bullets
As a chord deck, we got lots of good sideboard options as our silver bullets against different decks. Here is the list:
Phyrexian Revoker: Karn, the Great Creator, Parhelion II, Thespian's Stage,
Mistcaller: Indomitable Creativity, Neoform, Yorion, Sky Nomad
Soulless Jailer: Greasefang, Okiba Boss, Torrential Gearhulk, Arclight Phoenix
Selfless Spirit: Any Destroy based mass removals
Drannith Magistrate: Bring to Light, Emergent Ultimatum
Masked Vandal: Any problematic enchantment or artifacts
The Removals
We have some number of removals in the sideboard. The biggest issues for me so far are Mayhem Devil, Greasefang, Okiba Boss and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. This is why I want two Dark Betrayal in my sideboard.
Fatal Push is for some random aggro matchups. We are likely ahead in those matchup once we develop our mana plus casting removals on their early threats.
The Tools to fight removals
There are decks full loaded with removals in the format. When that is the case, we will have to board out Chord of Calling as we do not get to develop our board in an easy way. With only 19 lands, the chance of Chord stucking in our hand is pretty high. In such a scenario, Shapers' Sanctuary can turn the tide solely by itself. Leading with Shapers' Sanctuary turn one means even if the opponent tries to stop us from developing our mana, we will have a much higher chance to draw our lands and play in an honest fashion.
Vivien, Monsters' Advocate is a one card win in some grindy matchups. With the rise of Boros Convoke, the number of mass removal is quite high and I will need a card to fight through all those board swipes. It is often to see opponents try to bait us to commit more to the board and simply die on our turbo Vivien turn 3.
Best 3 tips/tricks
1. The sequencing of two drops
One of the hardest decisions for the deck normally comes at choosing which two drops to play by turn two. When you have the options, think about what is your game play? Dwynen's Elite and Elvish Warmaster is your choice if you are trying to flood the board as much as possible. On the other hand, if you want to go for the value plan against potential mass removals, you might want to get Leaf-Crowned Visionary into play and try to generate value and not over commit to the board. If you are missing on some critical cards like lands or removal on opponent key pieces, you might want to get Elvish Visionary and dig for the card by turn two. Figuring your game plan on a matchup is always the key of making decisions.
2. Chord of Calling with Shaman of the Pack
When Shaman of the Pack triggered ability is on the stack, you could use Chord of Calling to get additional Elves into play to deal extra damage to your opponent. It happens a lot when you try to get double Shaman to deal 20 or 18 damages.
3. Stacking the triggers of Collected Company
Remember you get to choose the sequence of your triggered abilities from Collected Company. We almost always want to put Shaman of the Pack’s triggered ability at the bottom of the stack after token generating abilities are resolved. Obviously we want to get the card drawing abilities from Elvish Visionary first as well just in case we draw Chord of Calling. Every single damage counts!
Matchups game plan and sideboard plan
Rakdos Midrange
Game one is one of the easiest matchup for us. Their spot removals are normally not enough to stop us. Just jam out everything and race them with Shaman of the Pack.
The sideboard game is a little bit tricky. They now board in 3-5 mass removals along with their spot removals. The dynamic of the game changes and we will need the help of Shapers' Sanctuary and Vivien, Monsters' Advocate. Turn one Shapers' Sanctuary normally means you win the game. Therefore I will always try to mulligan into it especially when I am on the play. They also lowered on threats where all we need to answer is Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I will bring in Fatal Push and Masked Vandal for them as well.
Mono-Green Devotion
This is a nut draw based matchup. They could go infinite combo turn 4 while we on average killing by turn 4 to 5. I believe our average draw beat their average draw. So I considered this as a favorite but losable matchup.
We bring in Revoker for Karn in the sideboard games. Their beat down plan is not great against us as they do not stop us developing and we will have lots of tokens to block. Our swing back is threatening to them meanwhile. Elvish Warmaster’s activation is extremely relevant in removing their devotion count.
Mono-White Human
This is the easiest matchup in the meta. The only way we could lose is mana problem and Brave the Element which seems to be going down in the stock list. Their best draw could not match with our average draw. Lots of games will have a board stall with over 10 creatures in play and we win with double shamans.
Sideboard games are mostly the same. We brought in Fatal Push for Brutal Cathar and Masked Vandal for Portable Hole and called it the day.
Boros Convoke
The texture of this matchup is a little bit different from Mono White Human as they go much wilder which we can match that part with them well. Leaf-Crowned Visionary is a key to hold up the board. We play some defense and eventually win with card advantages from Leaf-Crowned Visionary.
Sideboard game we brought in a Selfless Spirit as it will lead to a blow out in combat. Also Fatal Push to hopefully slow their convoke turn by a little bit.
Rakdos Sacrifice
After some great matchup, we arrived at our nightmare matchup. Game one is close to unwinnable once they get a Mayhem Devil in play. So play in the most efficient way and hope they do not draw the devil along with any sacrifice outlet.
We cut Chord of Calling in the sideboard game as they have infinite removals. We bring in all our removals and point them only to the devil. Shapers' Sanctuary is good but they could always go for the face with devil, cat and oven. So we still need to get a meaningful board to beat them fast.
Abzan Greasefang
Another nut draw based matchup. If they always go turn two putting Parhelion II to grave into turn three Greasefang, there is not much we could do in game one. It was simply jamming and racing. If it is an open decklist tournament, mulligan into Warmaster with double one drop would probably get you the highest chance to race them. Warmaster and Shaman are the key in racing at game one and hope for the best!
Sideboard games are a bright new world. We got Dark Betrayal to destroy Greasefang and we can chord for Jailer to stop Greasefang’s trigger ability. Their hardcast beatdown plan with Esika's Chariot is not threatening to us.
Lotus Field
Another nut draw based matchup. The same approach as other goldfish matchups.
Sideboard we bring in Selfless Spirit for mass removals, Drannith Magistrate for Emergent Ultimatum and Phyrexian Revoker for Thespian's Stage. The matchup is not really interactive. Let’s race!
Azorius Control
Game one highly depends on if they draw their mass removals. If they do not, it is very easy.
Collected Company allow us to play around mass removals a bit. Yet on the other hand, we do not always get the luxury to play around their mass removals. Very often our hand do not allow us to do so, we should simply all in and jam the board. The ability to identify the situation is crucial in the matchup.
Sideboard we bring in Vivien, Monsters' Advocate as a value card, Selfless Spirit as a bullet to stop Supreme Verdict and Masked Vandal to answer Temporary Lockdown.
Other Decks
So we just reviewed the sideboard plan for the top matchups in the format. But there are some more decks in the format I couldn’t cover them all here, but the general rule goes to:
- If they got enough removals to stop my Chord of Calling
- If yes, cut Chord, add Shapers' Sanctuary
- If not, cut the flex slot, add the bullet
- If they got key creatures make the deck function, add in removals
Final Chapter
Elves is a very underplayed deck in Pioneer. It is very fun and sometimes quite complicated to play. I hope it will get you some interest in trying the deck out. Last but not least, I want to give some credit to Benjamin Reilly (@Xbox_Greg on twitter) who basically developed the whole deck. Although I do not personally know him, I learn by watching his game play alot and he deserves lots of credit for it. If you want to learn about how the deck plays out, definitely go give him a follow.
Thanks for reading. Until next time.
Lee Shi Tian
@leearson